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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Riding the Rails in New Hampshire

This years trip hasn’t been the greatest for riding the rails. We stopped at both the HOBO Railroad in Meredith and the White Mountain Central at Clark’s Trading Post and were too late to ride either. But we did get some pictures. We found these in the HOBO yard in Meredith. The cabooses seem to be privately owned. What a neat weekend place. Later you will see more of the HOBO RR as it is connected with the Winnipesaukee Scenic RR.The White Mountain Scenic RR runs out of Clarks Trading post which is home to some trained dancing bears. But it was after the season and the bears were napping when we got there. Maybe they were getting ready to watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Of course the minor detail of being “Closed for the Season” didn’t stop me from roaming around (through an open gate i found) and taking some pictures of their rolling stock. I’m hoping that on a return trip in the summer we will be able to ride this line.

As Beatrice told you we made a two day excursion to North Conway and rode the Conway Scenic RR. We took the 21 mile trip to Bartlett and back again. As you can see they do sometimes run all to Fabyan Station. The coach we rode in was a renovated Central of New Jersey RR coach that used to run on the Jersey Coast line from Bay Head to Newark. CNJ is now part of the New Jersey Transit System.

Our locomotive that day was a restored GP-5.

On our return trip we stopped at an apple cider mill for some coffee and a traditional apple cider donut (see Beatrice post on that).This past Sunday we ventured up to Weir’s Beach, just outside of Laconia, to ride the Winnipesaukee Scenic RR. As i said, this and the HOBO RR are run by the same company. Our ride was a short one from Weir’s Beach to Lakeport, a section of Laconia. What made this trip different was that there was no “run around” where the locomotive switches from one end or the train to the other. This time we just went in reverse, caboose first.The lake is the largest lake in the state and also the most populated even in the off season. Our ride went along the shore line which while beautiful still had some boats on it. This one caught my eye since i owned a similar one years ago.

I want to take such a train trip some day. We have talked about taking a train across country to Maine. We'll see. I just seems a much more scenic way to travel. I guess that would be a lot different taking a scenic trip..ah well... :)

Too bad about the trains that had quit running, but at least you've found a few that are still operating. We've ran into several places that closed mid October, but fortunately have found many that are open until the end of October or all year. Yes, Marty is feeling much better, although we did spend some time in Portland at First Care. Just what you want to do on vacation!